WALL: It was 10:45 p.m. Nov. 9, 1989, the day that the Berlin Wall came down and East Berlin ceased to exist.

The wall was erected to keep people in, to prevent people from defecting from communist-controlled East Germany to the West. More than 5,000 escaped by going over and under the wall, but more than 100 died or were killed in trying to reach freedom.

A number of factors led to the eventual fall of the wall that separated the city of Berlin and led to the stronghold of the communist Iron Curtain.

History.com said Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) weakened the Soviet Union’s grip on Eastern Europe and inspired democratic movements in the region. Growing mass protests in Eastern Germany demanded the freedom to travel.

The openings of borders in other countries like Hungary showed East Germans that change was possible. 

On Nov. 9, 1989, East German official Günter Schabowski mistakenly announced that new travel regulations would be effective “immediately” when asked during a press conference. Expecting to be able to travel freely, thousands of East Berliners flocked to the border crossings. Facing the huge, expectant crowds, the confused border guards opened the gates, rather than risking a violent confrontation.

After that, revolutions swept over communism in Czechoslovakia and Romania. In 1990, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania voted out their communist governments, making moves toward independence. 

In 1991, pro-democracy forces rallied around Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian republic. It was the end of the USSR, as one by one, its constituent republics declared independence.

Pieces of the Berlin Wall itself were auctioned off, with one behind glass in a men’s room of the Main Street Station Casino in Las Vegas.